done it by me; and remember to the last, that while there is life there
is hope. God bless and help you all!" With those words I collected what
strength I had left, and caught at two arms that were held out to me, and
so got from the stern-sheets of one boat into the stern-sheets of the
other.

"Mind where you step, sir," whispered one of the men who had helped me
into the Long-boat. I looked down as he spoke. Three figures were
huddled up below me, with the moonshine falling on them in ragged streaks
through the gaps between the men standing or sitting above them. The
first face I made out was the face of Miss Coleshaw, her eyes were wide
open and fixed on me. She seemed still to keep her senses, and, by the
alternate parting and closing of her lips, to be trying to speak, but I
could not hear that she uttered a single word. On her shoulder rested
the head of Mrs. Atherfield. The mother of our poor little Golden Lucy
must, I think, have been dreaming of the child she had lost; for there
was a faint smile just ruffling the white stillness of her face, when I
first saw it turned upward, with peaceful closed eyes towards the
heavens. From her, I looked down a little, and there, with his head on
her lap, and with one of her hands resting tenderly on his cheek--there
lay the Captain, to whose help and guidance, up to this miserable time,
we had never looked in vain,--there, worn out at last in our service, and
for our sakes, lay the best and bravest man of all our company. I stole
my hand in gently through his clothes and laid it on his heart, and felt
a little feeble warmth over it, though my cold dulled touch could not
detect even the faintest beating. The two men in the stern-sheets with
me, noticing what I was doing--knowing I loved him like a brother--and
seeing, I suppose, more distress in my face than I myself was conscious
of its showing, lost command over themselves altogether, and burst into a
piteous moaning, sobbing lamentation over him. One of the two drew aside